Extract from Stephanie Wilkins’s article “5 Top Legal Tech Trends to Watch as We Close Out 2022”
Against a backdrop of a constantly changing regulatory landscape and continual innovation, legal tech has evolved significantly in the past year.
At the 2022 Women, Influence & Power in Law conference in Washington, D.C., last week, over 700 women experts from all aspects of the law converged to discuss the most pressing issues facing the legal industry today. In addition to powerful and inspiring keynote sessions on the importance of networking, pay transparency, ending forced arbitration in sexual harassment and assault cases, and the current situation in Ukraine, a number of panels touched on the biggest tech issues facing the legal profession today.
Here’s a look at the top trending tech issues lawyers are grappling with as we head into the new year.
1. The Metaverse Has Legs (Even if Meta Doesn’t)
We’ve been hearing speculation and doubts about whether the metaverse will change the legal profession for a while now. Even as law firms set up metaverse offices, their clients are hesitant to embrace them.
Nonetheless, whether it seems like it or not right now, there’s a growing consensus that the metaverse will eventually be the future of law. The current lack of understanding about metaverse use cases is likely due to the fact that it’s still being defined. This lack of clarity makes for regulatory challenges, though some of the first risks and considerations lawyers will have to grapple with will likely come in the areas of data and cybersecurity, said Ilona Logvinova, associate general counsel at McKinsey & Company, at a panel titled “AI, Crypto, and the Metaverse, Oh My! Regulatory Implications of a Digital World.”
